Batman Secret Files: Clownhunter #1

Batman Secret Files: Clownhunter #1

DC Comics 2021

Written by Ed Brisson

Illustrated by Rosi Kampe

Coloured by Andrew Dalhouse

Lettered by Simon Bowland

Clownhunter’s brutal mission to hunt down all the clowns from The Joker War continues! The untrained but focused vigilante stalks a boss-level clown, but his luck might be running out as he walks into an ambush set by Punchline! In a horrific parallel to his days at Gotham Academy, Clownhunter finds himself overwhelmed and outgunned...just the type of odds he likes!

Now I’m not quite sure how I got sucked into this one but with Ed writing this you know it’s going to be good. Plus with the Gotham kids at Titan’s Academy I’ve become somewhat fascinated with the next generation of Gotham’s crime fighters. Okay so Clownhunter has a very specific subset he’s after and there are reasons for this and it does fit right into the whole Batman niche. So yeah what Ed does with this story is introduce a young man who feels like there is no one he can depend on, not even Batman or Red Hood. It is a typical teenager who has gone through some sort of tragedy during the Joker War and now feels that if he doesn’t do something then nothing's gonna change. It is pretty powerful actually.

I am very much enjoying the way that this is being told. The story & plot development that we see through how the sequence of events unfold and how the reader learns information is presented exceptionally well. The character development we see through the dialogue, the character interaction as well as how they act and react to the situations and circumstances which they encounter. The boy is such a great character, so much better than Punchline. How we see everything working together to create the story’s ebb & flow as well as how it moves the story forward is achieved exceptionally well.

I appreciate the way we see this being structured and how we see the layers within the story emerge and grow. I love the now & then storytelling Ed is doing here because of how relevant both segments are for that moment in time. The layers contain some incredible characterisation and plot twists and this adds depth, dimension and complexity to the story in some strong ways. The way that we see everything working together to create the story’s ebb & flow as well as how it moves the story forward is achieved exceptionally well.

There is something about the interiors that intrigues me. The linework is fantastic and how we see the varying weights and techniques being utilised to create the detail work that we see throughout the book is really rather well rendered and effective. How we see the backgrounds being utilised is well thought out, we could see more just saying, and how they work within the composition of the panels to bring out the depth perception, sense of scale and the overall sense of size and scope to the story is rendered beautifully. The utilisation of the page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels show a remarkably talented eye for storytelling. The colour work is brilliantly rendered. The various hues and tones within the colours being utilised to create the shading, highlights and shadow work shows a fantastic eye for how colour works.

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I really like this issue and it makes me want to see more of this kid. He’s unhinged and has this obsession with taking down every single clown in Gotham but he’s got no training, plenty of chutzpah though and that’ll only get him so far. This is a really good, strong issue that puts a spotlight on what happens to the ordinary citizens of Gotham after going through such a horrendous event, you can only survive in Gotham for so long until you crack. With some stellar writing and dynamic characterisation wrapped up in these sensational interiors that make you realise how dangerous growing up there can really be.